How does the port timer window and the ability to get in to port battles affect the chances of people in off-set time zones (AU TZ). How does Admin see these players taking part in the lord system.
does Admin recommend these players focus on making the money to buy the access to voting or PVP to gain access to voting?

The problem is that the labour shortage means that no ships of any size are getting made. With the sudden bump to xp and ranks we now have more players at the rated ship level and less hours to go around to the high level crafters.
You should be able to invest gold and time to increase your ability to increase your production hours. LH are increasing pressure on the cost of ships; if i have a finite number of hours and demand is increasing exponentially than prices and inflation will only rise.

1)Leaks are more serious now. That is a good thing however its hard to know how serious the leak is apart from it is above or below the water line. This can mean having a minor leak or a major leak is completely unknown until you start sinking and filling up. Some guidance on the best ways to stop serious leaks would be handy (stop and down sails? keep moving? pop urgent repairs? pop hull repairs?).
I like it much better now than i did before.
2) This makes you need to be a lot more careful about how and when you take damage and makes breaking combat a skill that is needed now. This made doing an epic event with 4 rated ships vs 20 odd 5th and 6th rates something very challenging and loads of fun (we sunk 15 odd ships, some we managed to one shot). We needed to work together to clear chasers and clear combat. Crew loss is now something you need to keep an eye on. This is a great step in the right direction.
3) I am all for making the AI a challenge, but i would prefer the AI mods to be scaled along with the rank and skill. I have lots of hours in the game and last night was some of the most fun i have had in it. New players should get the AI bot fleet for free to help get started.
4) NPC ships should only be able to be captured if it is one of the standard craftable ships. Another option is to make the less used ships flagged for capture. (cerb, frigate, Inger, brig, cutter etc)

As a Danish player and crafter i have good access to Teak and I have been using teak + Planking for our PvP ships almost exclusively with some exceptions for certain roles. (heavy nade ships or fleet orcas)
All high rate ships should be live oak and built/planking i feel.
TLDR.
what he said. (Slamz)

A few things.
Are the ship prices pulling the recipes from the API and the prices too? Are they correct?
Teak ship type has a + armour type bonus as does live oak. so your table should look like this
live oak = + HP, + AT, -speed
Oak = + HP
Teak = + AT
Fir = + speed, - hp, (maybe?) - AT

It depends where you are aiming as well. I noticed the AI shoots at or below your lower gun deck. I tend to aim for the middle gun deck unless i am trying to make leaks. I think this tends to be the main difference, the other one i the AI seems to spread the fire along the bottom, i tend to aim towards the rear.